


Billy Bones and the Terrible, Horrible, No-good, Very Bad Parrot

by kaasknot



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pre-Canon, bad parrot ownership 101, really it's shameless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 02:38:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12973941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: Billy Bones hadn't gone into the prize ship expecting to come out with a parrot. But here he was.





	Billy Bones and the Terrible, Horrible, No-good, Very Bad Parrot

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2017 Black Sails Big Bang! Endless thanks to thesmartbluebox, my co-creator, whose art can be found [here](http://theartbluebox.tumblr.com/post/168389118437/another-black-sails-big-bang-piece-ill-add-the). Go forth and reblog it and praise it with great praise!
> 
> Apologies to anyone with sailing knowledge, I made up a lot of nonsense to make up for the holes in my research.

Billy ducked into the salon, conscious of his bloody, sooty state against the orderly interior. Mr. Gates was rifling through the papers and parchments on the desk, and Captain Flint was browsing the scanty bookshelves. There wasn’t much of a selection; the prize’s captain didn't appear to be the sort for books.

“We’re--” Billy began, but that was as far as he got; a deafening squawk, sounding vaguely like a shrieking, outraged woman, cut him off. He leapt half out of his skin before he thought to check behind the door.

“The fuck is that,” he said, staring at the ragged blue mess perched on a stand in the corner.

“On first glance, I'd say a parrot,” Flint replied, with that cutting, ironic bite that always made Billy’s insides twist.

“The sorriest-looking parrot I've ever seen, true enough,” Gates said, his jovial demeanor offsetting Flint’s spleen. “Looks like it's been through a battle or two.”

Billy hadn't seen many parrots up close other than the ones in the brothel, but those at least looked healthy. This one was dirty and droopy, and pink, naked skin covered its belly and wings in place of feathers. He stared at it, fascinated, and it stared right back. Billy had the strong impression that it was taking his measure as much as he was.

“What do you want?” Flint asked, a touch of impatience coloring his tone.

“We’re ready,” Billy said slowly. “Singleton thinks he could swing a couple of ‘em to our side.” He couldn't take his eyes off the parrot.

Flint merely grunted, absorbed in his perusal of the ship’s log. It was Gates who sighed and levered himself up.

“I’ll go supervise him,” he said. “God knows he’ll drag the lot of them on board, we only need ten.” He patted Billy’s arm as he passed, his gait uneven as he stumped out to the quarterdeck. _Knees must be bothering him again_ , Billy thought absently. The parrot tilted its head to the side, regarding him with one oildrop eye. An eye that was surrounded by a ring of the most vibrant yellow Billy had ever seen.

“Was there something else?” Flint’s voice had moved past impatient and into testy.

“No, I just…” Billy glanced back to the parrot. “Why does it looked like a half-plucked chicken?”

Flint transferred his glare from his book to the bird. “How the fuck should I know?”

 _You make like you know everything_ , Billy replied in the safety of his own thoughts. Aloud, he said, “Doesn't look like it's being well cared for.”

Flint stared at him, his unspoken _Get out_ nearly deafening in the silence between them.

Flint could shove it up his arse, Billy figured. He stepped towards the bird, and it stretched up to meet him, bobbing its head as he neared, side-stepping closer on its perch.

“You’re an ugly thing, aren't you,” Billy said wonderingly.

The parrot didn't seem to mind the abuse. It made a small, querulous sound, like but unlike a curious hen, and reached toward his outstretched hand with a beak that Billy realized was both enormous and very sharp-looking.

The parrot gave another piercing screech when he pulled back, then flapped off its perch--only for Billy to lunge and catch it, for, lacking a significant number of its wing feathers, it dropped more than it flew.

“Jesus _Christ_!” he exclaimed, and the bird, not yet satisfied with this turn of events, grabbed onto his necklaces and hauled itself onto his shoulder. “What are you--get off me!”

He reached up to try and pull the bird away, but it had a beak and it wasn't afraid to use it. Billy swore, shaking his bloodied hand. He tried tilting his shoulders to unseat it, but he'd forgotten he wasn't wearing a shirt, and the parrot’s claws and beak dug into his bare skin. It beat its wings over his head until he gave in, cupping his hands over his ears to fend off stray bites. “ _Fuck_ ,” he said with a very great deal of feeling.

Flint watched all this with a bland expression, but there was an amused light in his eye.

“It's not funny,” Billy muttered. Being laughed at by his brothers was one thing; getting laughed at by Captain Flint smacked more of humiliation.

Flint merely raised a brow. “Go help Gates,” he said. “I’ll be done here in a few more minutes.”

And that was how Billy Bones, boatswain of the pirate ship _Walrus_ , found himself walking out of the prize ship’s salon with a parrot almost as big as he was, and twice as disreputable-looking, perched on his shoulder. 

***

“The fuck is that?” Muldoon demanded as Billy bent to help him.

“Looks like a crate of porcelain to me,” Billy answered.

“I don't fucking mean the china, you arse.”

Billy grimaced. “Prize captain had a parrot,” he said, and regretted his shrug when the aforementioned parrot latched onto his ear to keep its seat. “Fuck!”

“The fuck do you want a parrot for?”

“I _don't!_ ”

“Then why is it sitting on your shoulder?” Muldoon was one of the smarter ones, but he wasn't showing it, now.

The parrot was an unfamiliar weight, its tail feathers draping down to cover a fair portion of Billy’s back. It was lighter than he would have thought, but every time he shifted it reminded him of its claws. All told, he was feeling put upon, more than a little embarrassed, and almost desperate to hit something, even if that something ended up being Muldoon’s face. “It doesn't seem inclined to move,” he said flatly. “And I'm not going to argue with it and risk losing a finger for my trouble.”

Muldoon glanced up to the massive, sickle-shaped beak resting perilously close to Billy’s face, and he laughed, the fucking bastard.

“Looks like you've got an admirer, Bones!”

“Move,” Billy grunted, his face heating. He shoved the crate against Muldoon’s chest, its contents rattling ominously. The parrot fluttered before settling.

“Yeah, alright, steady on,” Muldoon said, before taking up his end and carting it toward the nearest ladder. They'd have a bitch of a time hauling it abovedecks, but porcelain was costly and well-worth the effort.

“Toss that bird back,” Joshua laughed as they passed. “It won't sell for a bent tin penny!”

“Fuck off,” Billy snapped back. He was covered in scratches and he was fair sure the fucking bird had shat down his back. There was a fight itching in his knuckles; all he needed was an excuse to start one.

Negotiating the companionway with a crate of porcelain was a hassle, but the main hatch was occupied with hauling up casks of gunpowder and there was less traffic on the forecastle than elsewhere in the ship.

“Don’t _drop_ it, you moron! My foot is there!”

“Damn your foot, I almost lost my hand!”

“Get a hook and maybe you’ll be useful.”

Before long they were in open air, crate in hand and without any ominous shattering sounds from within. Furious shouts rang from amidships, where Singleton was rolling out his recruitment farce. The parrot shrank down and pressed itself against Billy’s head. He tried to forget about it. Parrots, eh? Good thing he certainly didn’t have one trying to press itself through his skull. 

“‘Ey, look ‘ere, lads!” Gibson called out from the _Walrus_ ’s rigging as Muldoon and Billy made their way across the gangplank. “Billy’s found himself a friend! A pretty lass in blue!”

Billy closed his eyes and cursed Gibson for opening his fat mouth, Flint for taking the prize in the first place, and most of all, the goddamn parrot for subjecting him to this misery.

He'd have to kill them all. It was the only way they'd ever let him forget this.

***

Billy Bones had never once in his six years of piracy wanted or missed the cabins the Royal Navy set aside for her petty officers. It smacked of favoritism and elitism, the sins which piracy remedied first. On a pirate vessel, only the captain got a private room, and that as a recognition of his leadership and the responsibility he bore for the crew. Billy had never been allowed a private cabin anyway. While aboard the _Phanaeus_ he had been a seaman, the lowliest of the low, and he’d gotten used to the sway of his hammock against those of his fellows. A flush deck was a thing of beauty, as far as he was concerned. All equal, all the same brothers, from the boatswain down to rawest recruit.

He'd never regretted it until now, with nowhere to hide the fact that he a parrot perched on his shoulder who _would not let go_.

“I’m begging you,” he said. “ _Please_. Let go of me.”

The parrot did not let go. Billy couldn't see it very well at his angle, but its feathers (what was left of them) were puffed out, the way Betsy got when she ran afoul of a stray shoelace.

“You should try sweet-talkin’ her,” Dooley said, rocking in his hammock with a toothy grin. “It's no good with a girl if you just harass her.”

Billy ran a hand down his face. What he wouldn't give for a little privacy. He ignored Dooley and said to the parrot, “I need to put my bloody shirt back on, and I can't do that with you sitting on me.”

The parrot quivered at the harder tone he'd taken, and Billy may have been a pirate but he wasn't a complete shit. He just felt like one. “Fucking Christ,” he muttered.

They were well under sail, headed back home to unload not one but two successful raids, and somehow Billy had managed to do everything he needed to with a bird clutching his back. But there was a front of cold wind rolling in from the north, and with that and the spray from the rough sea, Billy was past ready to put his shirt and coat on. He had a watch coming up and he didn't want to face the night in just his skin.

His shirt was in his lap. The parrot wouldn't budge.

“Teach you to go flashing your arms about,” Dooley added. “Is it any wonder she attached herself to you?”

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Billy snarled. He felt frayed at the edges, like rigging sheets pulled too tight and left in foul winds. He gave one last, desperate attempt to move the parrot, but it clacked its beak at his approaching fingers, its talons digging deeper into his skin, and Billy didn’t speak bird but he knew what a threat looked like when he saw one.

“Fine!” he snapped, overrun by his own frustration. “Fucking fine, you harpy!” He dragged the shirt on with sharp motions, driven to recklessness by anger. The parrot squawked; wings flapped; Billy swore.

But he got the fucking shirt on.

***

“Looks like you’ll have a fine notch in that ear,” Howell said. “I could stitch it if you want.”

“Just leave it,” Billy sighed. Christ, he was tired. The parrot had bit him, and then launched itself up into the nearest fire bucket rather than risk Billy as a perch any longer. He wasn't sure which stung more.

And he'd gotten blood on his last clean shirt. Self-pity was a corrosive habit, but he found himself dipping into it anyway. “Do you ever feel like the world wants to see you burn?”

Howell snorted. “It's a parrot, Bones, not a British Navyman.”

There it was. Perspective. Billy grunted. “Yeah. Thanks.” He hopped off the table. There was a hole gnawing in his belly, and he had only a short time until his dogwatch started. Randall wasn’t much of a cook, but he did fish stew well enough that Billy was looking forward to it more than fearing it. A thought occurred to him, and he turned back to Howell.

“Any chance you know what parrots eat?”

“Not a thing,” Howell said with a shrug.

“Right.” Billy knocked his knuckles against the table. “Thanks.”

He tossed the question around the crew. No one was an expert, but Logan had watched his girl Charlotte feed breadcrusts to the brothel parrots with no ill effects, so Billy figured ship’s biscuit probably wouldn't do it any great harm.

Not that it mattered much; the parrot didn’t seem inclined to come down out of the fire bucket, just kick out some of the sand into Billy’s hammock and burrow in until only its head and tail feathers showed. Billy figured it’d come down when it got hungry, and he'd deal with it, then.

“What d’you think, Billy?” Turk said, interrupting his thoughts. “Reckon parrot tastes anything like chicken?”

Billy, who’d only been half paying attention as he watched the parrot from the corner of his eye, turned to face Turk fully. “Maybe,” he said doubtfully, after a moment’s thought. “But it's not worth it to try, really.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, there's not enough on it for more than a mouthful or two. Randall’d have to make a soup out of it, and for there to be enough to go around he'd have to toss in a dozen chickens on top of it. You’d never even notice if it tasted different or not.”

“Ooh, I could do with a proper chicken stew,” Jameson moaned from the cannon he was using as a backrest. “With carrots and potatoes.”

“And hot warm rolls,” Muldoon added. “Light and fluffy. No weevils.”

“Stew with pepper and good cream,” Turk said, a dreamy, distant look in his eye.

“That’s chowder,” Billy told him, but no one listened; they were all in too deep.

“Where the chicken’s tender instead of dried out and tough.”

“And there's a lot of it, too, it's not just one or two bites in your bowl if you're lucky--”

“--can smell it already, rich and--”

The bell for second dogwatch rang. Billy pushed to his feet, and all eyes turned to him. “Any of you idiots touch that parrot and I'll gut you,” he announced. “Just so we’re clear. Mizzen watch, off your arses.”

It was a cold, choppy evening, but the winds stayed fair, and other than a little spray in his face, Billy spent his two hours spent thinking about minor ship’s concerns.

He'd have to talk to Gates about new hammocks for Riley and Ayo, and about resupplying holystones. He had enough frayed ropes saved by that they could start making deck swabs in the next few weeks, and they'd probably want to stock up on sand, too, while they were at it. The ballast would probably keep for another month, till the next careening. He did his usual rounds, checking with Randall (flour), Howell (vinegar), and Fredericks (nails and a new saw), then double-checked all the shrouds and ratlines for the hell of it.

The greater portion of his concerns were set at ease by the time the watch bell rang, and he headed down to his berth for the evening, not quite at ease, but more at peace than he had been earlier. 

The gun deck was golden with lantern light, conversation between the leaving watch and returning watch easy. Tonight wasn't a lively night, for which Billy was glad; he sank into his hammock with a heartfelt sigh, mindful of his torn ear.

The parrot was still camped in the fire bucket, only its long, blue tail feathers to be seen, curving up over the side like a cresting wave frozen in midair.

Billy took out his ration of ship’s biscuit to gnaw on as he gnawed on his thoughts. He plainly couldn't keep a pet bird. He wasn't some cosseted sugar planter with more money than sense; he was a pirate. Even when he wasn't at sea he was getting shot at, stabbed, or otherwise put in harm’s way. That was no life for a pet. Betsy only managed it because she was Mistress of Ratcatching and hid in the hold when the fighting started. What use would a parrot have, short of filling the stewpot?

He'd have to find someone willing to take it on when they got back to Nassau. Maybe the brothel madam wanted another.

The tail feathers twitched, and Billy watched for a moment, lulled half-asleep by the rocking of the ship and the rise and fall of conversation around him. He wasn't sure why he did it, a combination of pity and curiosity, perhaps, but he reached up and tilted the last of his biscuit into the fire bucket before settling back. It might not be what a parrot ate, but it was better than nothing, and they were still three days out from Nassau.

He fell asleep before he found out if the parrot ate it or not.

***

“Land, ho!”

The ship was electrified at the longed-for cry. Billy, hip-deep in lines to brace the sails against the fickle winds, had to stifle his own burst of excitement in favor of keeping the wallowing hog of the _Walrus_ going in the right direction. The severe countenance of the captain emerged from the salon, and he pulled out his spyglass. Any minute he’d call the All Hands; they were close enough to Nassau that they’d catch the evening tide in if they were lucky. 

A soft chirrup beside him caught Billy’s attention, and he turned to look at the parrot, who was perched on the gunwales, its wings hunched against the spray on its naked skin. “Nearly home,” he said to it. “We’ll get you a good, dry berth on land by this time tomorrow.” 

He’d taken to treating the bird like new crew. He couldn’t just ignore it; when he tried, it waddled behind him on the decks, weaving between the thicket of taller legs, squawking like a colicky babe until he acknowledged it. The crew, naturally, thought this this was the funniest thing since Hutchins had caught the shits right before an especially rough sail and had gone slip-sliding over the wave-washed decks to the head every ten minutes.

The parrot made a noise that Billy had learned meant “I’m hungry.”

“Can’t feed you now,” he said, as though it understood. “You’re a bird, you know how tricky this wind is.”

The same noise, in a more hopeful, plaintive tone.

“You made a fuss about the biscuit last time I gave you some, and that’s all I’ve got!”

This wasn’t enough for the parrot, who proceeded to stomp up and down the gunwales, shrieking its hunger to the bleeding topgallants.

“Sweet Jesus, Billy, bung that fucking bird!”

“It’s no worse than you!” Billy shot back. “Hold fast that brace sheet before you put us in irons, you idiot!”

Eventually the parrot got bored with yelling, or too tired to continue. Billy scarcely noticed when its yelling faded out, absorbed as he was in the keeping and steering of his ship. He found himself whistling as he tied off lines and loosened others. He had no great singing voice, not like Beauclerc or Dekker, but he was keen enough a whistler that he could make boatswain’s calls if they needed to fool a merchantman. That usually needed his fingers, though, to reach the volume of a pipe. This was just an idle sea song he’d heard a Basque whaleman sing on Nassau beach. He hadn’t understood the words, but the tune was ear-catching and sweetly mournful. 

He jerked under a sudden weight plummeting down upon his shoulder, and he almost lost his grip upon the fore-tops’l lines. “Jesus _Christ_!” he bellowed at the parrot, half in surprise, and half in pain as its claws dug through the thin linen of his shirt to draw blood.

Its only reply was a whistle, wobbly and slightly flat, and Billy stilled as he recognized the song he’d just been meandering around. The parrot piped it out again.

Billy licked his lips and whistled back. He stood still as a stone; this was the first time the parrot had sat on his shoulder since that first day, the first time it had even touched him more than the odd feather in his face.

It mimicked it back to him. It wasn’t quite right, the rhythm was off, but the notes were spot-on. 

“Oi, Billy!”

Gates, this time. Billy spun around, his ears heating. Gates’s expression was serious, but the slightest smile was hidden beneath his beard.

“Back to work, yeah?”

Billy set himself to the ropes with new and embarrassed fervor, and this time, rather than fluff off in a huff, the parrot stayed with him. He tested out another song he’d heard, putting out the first verse and waiting to see what the parrot did.

There was a pause, then it gave a wobbling, uncertain rendition.

“Damn my eyes,” he heard Muldoon say nearby. “Did you see that?”

Billy found himself grinning. He hauled the lines and whistled the next verse. There was another pause, then the parrot whistled it back. “We’ll make a sailor out of you yet,” he murmured. They whistled each other all the way to Nassau bay, when the shanties took over.

The parrot whistled them, too.

***

“Of course I’m not taking it,” Mrs. Mapleton said with a laugh, eyeing the ragged ball of feathers picking at the twine holding Billy’s coat together. “Does that look like a healthy bird to you?”

Billy glanced past her to the yellow and blue parrot perched behind the bar, tearing apart a mango. It had all its feathers, and it was sleek and shiny looking. “It could get better,” he tried, but it sounded weak even to his ears.

The brothel madam snorted. “I run a business of pleasure. There is nothing pleasurable about that sorry thing. Off you go.”

“Do you at least know anyone who’d be interested in taking it?”

She gave him a long, exasperated look. “There’s a bird seller near the coconut grove.” She eyed Billy’s battered parrot again. “You’d be better off putting it out of its misery. There’s no one who wants a parrot in that state.” With that, she swanned off to bilk a few more of Billy’s brothers of their earnings, leaving Billy standing at loose ends. He watched his parrot stretch curiously toward its happier cousin before he mustered himself enough to leave.

“You’re a fucking pain in my arse, you know that,” he sighed.

The coconut grove wasn't much of a grove, just a thicket of palms no one had bothered to cut down until Nassau had grown around it. It was a slightly better part of town than the beach, which was to say your odds of getting knifed in an alley behind the Straw Market were fair-to-middling rather than “keep your cutlass and your wits sharpened.”

Billy felt the stares of the people he passed. He'd always been noticeable, on account of his height; he guessed the half-naked parrot on his shoulder added somewhat to the image.

He found the bird seller on a quieter thoroughfare a block away from the coconuts. He’d spent most of the walk worrying how he'd find it; most of the residents of Nassau couldn't read, and Billy wasn't sure how a bird seller would advertise his wares. A cut-out of a bird, perhaps? In the end, it was easier than he'd thought. If the way his parrot’s claws dug into his shoulder hadn't been enough, the screeching would have given it away.

When he'd been a boy, there had been a solitary oak tree grown up through the cobblestones in the alley behind his parents’ house. None of his neighbors had cut it down for firewood, not even in the harshest winter, because it was generally believed to be a fairy tree; more immediately useful, however, was the flock of starlings that called it home. No one wanted to lose their droppings. They weren't as good as pigeon or chicken droppings, but no one turned away free fertilizer, no matter the source. Billy remembered waking many a summer morning to the shrieking of those starlings, sounding like a whole town upended in the branches of a tree: yelling fishwives, squalling babes, braying donkeys, and police whistles all sounding from tiny iridescent birds with more noise than brain.

The bird seller’s shop sounded every bit like that starling tree.

“Mother of God,” Billy muttered to himself. To the parrot: “If you ever carry on like that I _will_ stuff you in the cookpot.” He pushed open the door and went inside.

Color was everywhere. Red, green, orange, white--even blue, though nothing approached the deep royal of the bird clinging to his sword belt’s shoulder strap. Billy stood stunned. Birds of every shape and size were gathered in cages along the walls, from pigeons to parrots, and it seemed all were determined to make themselves heard.

Before Billy could muster his wits, a tidy-looking man with a threadbare coat came through the back room. He took in Billy, then the parrot on his shoulder, and then he smiled, showing his yellowing teeth. “Good day, sir!” he called out over the din. “How may I help you?”

Billy wasn’t sure how much of that “sir” was politeness as opposed to an attempt to butter him up, but he reined in his irritation. They both knew Billy wasn’t any sort of gentleman. “I, er, found this parrot,” he said, raising his own voice to be heard. His bird was making small noises, and shifting its feet in what might have been a nervous fashion. “I was wondering if I could sell it to you.”

“Follow me into the back,” the merchant said after a moment, then led the way to the back room. Billy followed, after a moment’s hesitation.

The noise of the sales room was somewhat muted here, enough that he could hear the man “Hmm” as he took in the parrot perched on Billy’s shoulder. “May I?” he asked, reaching out a hand toward it.

“Uh,” Billy said, for the parrot was threatening to bite the merchant’s fingers. “If you can get it off, sure.”

“There, now, you spiteful creature,” the merchant said, finally taking hold of the parrot’s beak and feet and bodily lifting it from Billy’s shoulder. It looked like a practiced motion; he had clearly done it before. Billy wasn’t sure why, but it made him uneasy. He’d reached an agreement of sorts, with the parrot: he raised his hand and said “Get the fuck down,” and the parrot stepped off onto his hand. That the merchant hadn’t some better way, for a supposed expert, felt off.

“You’re in rough shape, my darling,” the merchant said to the parrot, letting it loose upon his work table. Billy had mostly forgotten how ragged it looked, but having it brought to his attention twice in one day, by people he wanted to take it from him, made him a great deal more conscious of the chewed ends of its tail feathers, and the naked, plucked-pink color of its chest. “Poorly clipped, and a plucker as well. You have taken poor care of this parrot, sir.”

Billy bristled. “I took it off a prize ship four days ago,” he said. “I found it like that.”

The merchant raised a brow. “Of course.” He continued his inspection. “Well-formed toes, the eyes and nares appear dry… well, indeed. It is a poor investment; few want a naked bird, and it may take up to a year to find out if the feathers will return. I can give you--”

He quoted an amount, a paltry, pathetic amount, and Billy laughed despite himself. “I can win that off my crew on a bad night,” he said. “I reckon you sell the birds out there for ten times that.”

“Those birds are in peak health,” the merchant said delicately. “This one is not. It represents a sizeable drain on my finances until it becomes sellable merchandise.”

Billy looked at the parrot sitting upon the table, its too-large feet pigeon-toed and its head cocked to look at him through one eye and then the other. It looked ridiculous with its naked belly and lopsided wings, but… “Not less than half the going rate,” he said firmly.

“Unacceptable, I’m afraid.”

“Right,” Billy said, nodding. He held out his hand to the parrot. “Up you get,” he said, and it clambered onto his outstretched arm with a happy-sounding warble. “Thank you for your time,” he said to the merchant, before stepping back out to the main room.

“Wait!” the man cried. “I’m sure we could come to a--a mutually equitable arrangement!” 

Billy rolled his eyes and made for the door.

“I’ll--a quarter! A quarter of the going rate, but I can go no higher!” The merchant grabbed the door latch before Billy could, holding it in place. Billy regarded his hand, then the poorly-hidden desperation on the merchant’s face as he stared up at Billy’s parrot.

“Seems to me,” Billy said slowly, “that this must be a very valuable bird, if you want it badly enough to prevent my leaving.”

Billy had had a lemon once, when Logan had dared him to eat it. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. This merchant looked just like he’d bitten into a fat, juicy lemon. “Do you have the slightest idea how rare it is to find a blue macaw?” he snapped. “I’ve sold three in the twelve years I’ve been in business.”

“Is that so?” Billy peered at the parrot on his shoulder. The parrot peered back. “A blue macaw.” He turned back to the merchant. “You shouldn’t have told me that. Now I _know_ you weren’t offering a fair price.” He opened the door and strode out.

“Bleeding Christ,” he said when he’d gotten out of earshot. “What a tosser.”

The parrot, meanwhile, was paying him no mind. It had caught sight of a fruit seller’s stall, and was flapping its hacked-apart wings hard enough to throw Billy off balance. “Oi!” he said, without any real heat. “You’re a presumptuous fuck, you know that?” He went over to the stall all the same. He supposed even parrots got sick of ship’s biscuit, and Billy wouldn’t mind an orange for himself.

The parrot had waddled down his arm by the time he got to the stall, clinging to his coat sleeve and flapping and generally causing a ruckus.

“Sorry,” he said to the fruit merchant, who was eyeing the very large, very insistent parrot with something akin to horror in her eyes. “I'll pay for whatever it damages--”

But the parrot didn't damage any of the fruit seller’s wares, save for a single mango, which Billy paid for. He took a small sack of oranges as well, enough to share with Joji and Muldoon, and maybe a few of the other starboard watchmen left on the ship. Chunks of mango rained over his shoulder, some of it hitting the side of his face, and he took his change with a grimace instead of a smile. “Yeah,” he said quietly to no one in particular as he turned round. “Need to get rid of you. My _one_ fucking coat. Christ.”

Movement caught the corner of his eye, a suspicious sort of sideways sidle that didn't belong in the bustle of a market. The hairs prickled down Billy’s arms, and he forced himself to relax. Just because there _was_ a tail didn't mean they were tailing _him_. Nassau was as crooked and spiteful as any town Billy had known, and there were a lot of people with scores to settle; best not jump to conclusions. He idled down the road, feigning interest in a display of straw hats, seeing if the moth-eaten and mangy man he'd spotted lingered with him, or went on to follow someone else.

Three stalls later and Billy was in a foul mood. There were at least three of them, and they were definitely following him. Also, the parrot had wiped its sticky beak off on his coat, and the overripe sweet smell of mango pulp was giving him a headache.

“Ten shillings says they're that fucking bird seller’s,” he said to the parrot. “Not sure what a blue macaw’s worth, but it's damn well more than he offered, if he's going this far to get you.”

He was obscurely pleased that his parrot was an especially rare parrot. It looked like a cat had chewed it up, but at least it was valuable.

The sun was climbing higher in the sky, and the heat was starting to broil. All Billy wanted was a patch of shade and some peace to eat his fucking oranges. “Fine,” he muttered. “Let’s get this over with.” He deliberately turned down the nearest side street and drew his cutlass. If they wanted to rough him up, they'd have their work cut out for them: he wasn't called “Bones” for nothing.

They dropped the pretense when they found him waiting and ready.

“Just hand the bird over and we’ll leave you be,” the first man said, who bore an uncanny resemblance to the pig Randall had pulled up for dinner last week.

“And if I say no?” Billy asked. It was a redundant question; he'd seen more than enough men roughed up for their valuables to know how this scenario ended. If it wasn't him standing victorious, it'd be him laying in his own blood.

“It’d be easier for you if you cooperated,” Pig-Face said. He almost sounded like he'd prefer that outcome, but the eager glint in his eye gave him away.

Billy sized them up. Three, in all; Pig-Face looked like the meanest of the lot, but one of the others was almost of a height with Billy, and fatter, which meant he'd have more weight to throw about if it came to pushing and shoving--if he had the stamina. The third was small and wiry and quick. Probably faster than Billy, but he looked the least certain.

Decent odds. They could be better.

“I don't think I will,” he replied. It was a silly thing, but he was just irritated enough--that the bird seller had tried to scam him, that he'd sent thugs to take the parrot anyway, that the parrot had ruined his fucking coat--that a fight was just the ticket. He shifted his grip on his cutlass, and none too soon: Pig-Face lunged, and the fight was on.

For all of a heartbeat the parrot tried to cling to Billy’s shoulder, but the clang of steel as Billy parried convinced it otherwise. It scrambled off in a lopsided flutter to the edge of the nearest roof, and Billy was on his own.

In a distant part of his mind, Billy wondered what the fight looked like from the parrot’s perspective. Noisy and alarming, probably. Thank god it was short-lived, too. Pig-Face went down first, a sloppy swordsman with a blade too big for his experience level; he died choking on his own blood. The big one ended up hamstrung, and the last, well, Billy only had to feint at him before he scrambled off in a terror.

“There's a surgeon down by the beach,” he said to the hamstrung man, wiping the blood off his cutlass before sheathing it. “Name of Howell. His fees are reasonable. Tell him Billy Bones sent you.”

A screech overhead drew his attention, and he saw the parrot on a nearby roof, treading nervously back and forth.

It occurred to Billy, in the particular clarity of battle, that he could walk on and leave the parrot to its own devices. He'd fed it and bled for it, and it had repaid him mostly with bother. He hadn't fought the merchant’s thugs out of a desire to protect a beloved pet, but irritation that they had thought him so easily cheated. What was the bird to him? Not a pet, certainly. Nothing demanded he keep it.

He watched as it gnawed on the straw thatch. There was an air of waiting in it, as though it sensed Billy was making up his mind, and was giving him the room he needed to think. An absurd thought to ascribe to an animal, but once it took root, Billy couldn't turn it aside.

Parrots were wild-caught, for the most part. He'd rarely dealt in them himself, their being a fragile, and thus rare, commodity aboard ships, but he had a vague notion that they were taken from their parents’ nests as chicks. Could this parrot fend for itself without humans? Did it know how to find its own food? Would it survive storm season, or get knocked out of the first tree it tried to nest in?

How long could a parrot without wings last on its own?

Billy had killed men. He had left others to die, and once helped a brother kill himself when a rigging accident left him without the use of his arms or legs. He wasn't soft. He could, he thought, very easily let this parrot die without losing sleep.

As though it sensed the tenor of his thoughts, the parrot waddled to the edge of the roof and bobbed down at him, chirping and twisting its head around in a surprisingly charming manner.

Billy stared at it a while longer, then sighed. “I've lost my damn mind, is what it is,” he muttered. He held up his hand for the parrot to step on. “Come on, you bloody ragbag. Let's go.”

The parrot gave another chirp, and then the vital, fragile press of its feet clamped about his wrist.

Billy turned back to the beach and home.

***

A shadow fell over his splice, and Billy looked up to see the formidable, dour countenance of Mr. DeGroot looming above, his arms crossed in displeasure.

“Can I help you, Mr. DeGroot?” he asked, feeling like a misbehaving schoolboy and irritated with it, because this man was his peer and Billy had done nothing to upset the _Walrus_ ’s Ship Master.

“That bloody pigeon of yours chewed through the mains’l footrope again,” DeGroot answered, and Billy’s heart sank.

“Take it out of my share,” he said. “Was anyone injured?”

“No, and that’s the only reason I haven’t wrung her neck already. If it’s not the lines it’s the bloody gunwales, and if it’s neither of those it’s the belaying pins, the water casks, or the gun tackles!”

DeGroot’s face had gone red by the end of this, and Billy kept himself from cringing like the schoolboy he wasn’t by only the slenderest of margins. “I’ll see to her,” he said, knotting off his work around the marlinspike. 

“See that you do! She’s a menace, Bones, and I won’t have her if she proves a danger to the crew!”

“I’ll take care of her,” Billy said again, and went looking for his parrot. It wasn’t too hard; she preferred to be abovedecks rather than below, and she was the brightest scrap of color to be seen, a smudge of twilight dropped on the ship in the middle of forenoon watch. She was on the bowsprit, her wings spread into the ship’s wind. Her feathers hadn’t grown back in yet, but Billy had learned that it might take a few months to a year for that to happen, depending on when her molt happened. He made his way to the beak head and leaned against the rail, as close as he could get without climbing out onto the bowsprit himself.

His parrot spotted him quickly enough, and waddled down to see him. Some days she was a contrary snot and wanted nothing to do with him, but today was a good day, it seemed.

“There’s my girl,” he said, taking her small weight onto his arm. She presented her head for petting, and he obediently scratched at her neck feathers. “We’ve got a problem, my girl.”

She trilled at him. He’d heard the brothel parrots talk, but Billy’s hadn’t shown any inclination for it. He found he didn’t much mind. Everyone around him talked more than enough; the parrot screeching at dawn and dusk was enough for him. She grabbed his free hand with one of her feet and peered at it as though it held the answers to life’s mysteries. He let her close that massive beak around his fingers, and he didn’t shy away. She hadn’t bit him once in the month since he’d taken her back from the bird seller’s thugs. She was moody and fretful like a toddler, but she trusted him. Billy would sooner cut off his own hand than betray her.

“You need to stop gnawing the ship,” he said, shaking her beak gently. She paid no mind to his words. He hadn’t honestly expected her to; the importance of a ship’s structural integrity was not a parrot’s concern. This was a problem for him to solve.

Billy’d learned a thing or three about managing a crew since his election to boatswain. First among them being, you couldn’t change a man’s personality, only work with it. “You like to chew,” he said to himself, teasing the parrot by holding his fingers just out of reach. “That’s not going to change. So if I want you not to chew the ship…”

He transferred her to his shoulder and headed for the nearest hatch.

“Where’re you off to, Billy?” Morley called, in a good mood if the ration of grog in his pitcher and the smile on his flushed cheeks were anything to go by.

“Ship’s stores,” he called back, sliding down the companionway. The parrot fluttered, keeping her balance on the sheet of fishing net he’d taken to wearing over his shoulder to give her something to grip. The hell was fore of the foremast stem post, and a small, miserable place to find oneself; if the rocking of the ship didn’t make you sick, the sound of the waves against the hull would drive you ‘round the twist. Billy braced himself against the roll of the decks and unlocked the door.

The hell was where DeGroot kept the spare parts and ropes for the rigging, including an entire rack of belaying pins, all sizes. Billy picked out the largest, made of solid maple and not yet varnished to protect it against ocean spray. It was half as thick around as his wrist, but he’d seen the parrot snap through macadamia shells like they were made of spun sugar. It’d keep her busy for a little while, at least.

“How does that meet your standards, my girl?” 

He held up the pin for her inspection, and after giving it a proper look, she reached out with her beak. She seemed uncertain, glancing between Billy and the pin as though she expected him to shout at her for it. He couldn’t blame her; every time she’d gone after the belaying pins on deck where crew could see, she’d gotten yelled at.

“It’s alright,” he said softly. “This one’s not holding the sheets in place.” He knotted it into the fishing net and let it dangle down his back, where she could reach it. She waddled around until her tail feathers draped down his chest, and he heard the clacking of her beak against hardwood.

That solved the immediate problem. The rest, vigilance to make sure she didn’t lapse and go for the ropes again, was on him. He hesitated, then took a handful of rope scraps that were on the edge of fraying. If he knotted them they might catch a parrot’s attention, and hold it from the rigging. He smoothed down her tail feathers. “Just keep out of DeGroot’s way for the next couple days, yeah?”

Gnawing sounds were her only reply.

***

“You’re a brave man, Billy Bones,” Logan said, wide-eyed and agog as the parrot tore apart a coconut husk.

Billy shrugged, a weak, half-hearted gesture, as he was attempting to hold his head together. It felt an awful lot like the coconut in the parrot’s grip: torn, pounded, and generally in sad shape.

“Grog’ll do that to you,” Logan said companionably, slapping him on the shoulder loud enough to be heard over the morning din of breakfast on the beach. He watched the parrot chase the coconut as it rolled over the sand. “Why don’t you open it for her?”

Billy swallowed thickly. “Keeps her busy,” he croaked. “And quiet.” The scent of roasting pork wafted from the kitchen tent, sweet glaze mixing with meat char to make his stomach roll like the ship in choppy seas.

Logan kept him a companionable company, weaving something between his fingers. Probably a keepsake for his girl. Billy didn’t understand their relationship in the slightest. She was a whore and well-paid to make men think she liked him, and Logan more than knew this. He seemed to be glad of the lie, nevertheless. It was baffling. 

A loud rip and a squawk drew his attention to the parrot. She’d managed to pull off a hank of the coconut’s husk. She was starting to get the hang of it, Billy thought; it’d taken her twice as long last time to get as far. Her breast feathers were finally starting to come in, bristling pin-pricks that left marks on Billy’s skin when she got cuddly, but he was just glad they were growing in at all. He wasn’t sure they would. She preened them, realigning feathers that weren’t there yet in a fit of vanity, before attacking the rest of the coconut.

“You know, you haven't named her yet.”

“I will shoot you if you don't shut up,” Billy groaned. “I'll name her when I name her.”

He was getting soft with his liquor. He didn’t drink much anymore, not now that he had to buy all manner of expensive rations for the parrot. Nuts and dried fruit, mostly, but they went through fresh provisions with a will when they hit port. Billy missed rum less than he thought he might. He missed the hangovers a damn sight less.

“Kill me if I ever touch a bottle again,” he said.

Logan just laughed at him, the bastard.

***

Up in the rigging, you could hear the masts creak. Down below you didn’t notice it as much, drowned as it was by the sound of the spray and the noise of the crew. But aloft, with the wind blowing to knock you off the footropes, the sway of the mast creaked up through the soles of your feet and tugged a swoop of fear into your guts.

Billy tested the foremast braces, checking for slack and frays. The wind was brisk and warm, drying the sweat of exertion. Up here, with nothing but the bowsprit and staylines ahead of him and the sweeping arc of the ship beneath him, it was almost like flying.

He had a job to do, though. The ropes needed retarring, and the starboard sheets needed replacing. He’d pass it on to DeGroot, and hopefully him and Gates would be able to browbeat the captain into dropping anchor for a refit. And a careening; they’d been losing speed over the past month’s--

“Jesus Christ!” he almost shrieked, as a heavy, feathered weight slammed into his upper back. Claws dug into his shirt; he toppled forward, his foot slipping on the ropes, and only a panicked fist around the reefing ties kept him from dropping two hundred feet to the deck.

The parrot startled off him, her perch suddenly two feet lower and cursing loudly. She settled on the yard, and it was only her chagrined air that kept Billy from pelting her out into the open ocean. It wasn’t like it would hurt her much; she could fly again, and did it whenever she could. Including up to visit him in the masts, apparently.

“You can’t do that,” he said to her, willing his heart to slow. “If I’m not expecting you I could get hurt.”

He doubted she understood what he meant, but her manner told him she understood that she had done something wrong. He debated his course of action. She was on the yard, and looked miserable enough that he wanted to reassure her he wasn’t actually that mad. But if he touched her, she’d want on his shoulders, and he suspected if that happened she’d fly up to them again. And he didn’t want that. He steeled himself. “You stay there,” he said. “I’m going to finish this, then we can go down together.”

She followed him along the yard as he inspected the ropes, peering between him and his work enough times that it seemed like she was trying to understand. Billy didn’t even think before he began telling her the what’s what.

“I’m checking the integrity of the lines,” he said, easing into the voice he used to train newcomers. “You especially, but also normal usage, salt air, and the sun make them fray after a while.” He pulled up a reefing line, the tar mostly melted off to show the unraveling hemp. “Like that, see?” He unwound a length of rope from his shoulder and replaced the line. “This one’s not much, it’s a light rope, so it’s just as easy for me to repair it than it is to go all the way back down and get one of the riggers to do it. They’ll have enough on their plates with replacing the sheets, as it is.”

She listened, or she seemed to, and together they finished the fore topgallantsail yard.

“Two more to go, my girl,” he said. “Well, eight.” He held out a hand for her to climb aboard. She did with a soft beak and a happy chirp. Billy wouldn’t have thought, a year ago, that his first and last thought each day would be for a parrot. But then, the year before his emancipation by Flint’s crew he wouldn’t have thought his salvation would come in the shape of a pirate ship. Life had a way of surprising you.

He’d only just edged out onto the topmast when she launched off his shoulder with a squawk. She dodged through the rigging like--well, like a bird on the breeze, her tail feathers spread and her wings flapping madly. Billy spent a moment just watching her circle the ship. She was a funny creature, but her simple joy was infectious. He started in on the rigging with a smile. 

***

“No, that’s my spoon,” Billy said, nudging it out of the parrot’s reach. He held out the length of rope again. “Bite down.”

She mouthed at it, but didn’t bite. She seemed uncertain; he supposed being told to chew rope after having been told not to for so long was giving her a puzzle.

“Now you’re trying to get her to chew the lines?” Muldoon demanded, dropping himself on the bench across from Billy. His porridge slopped on the table, and the parrot went after the drops, skewing her head awkwardly and licking them up from the side of her mouth.

“I’m trying to get her only to chew the ropes when I give her the command,” Billy replied. “Figured it’d make re-rigging go easier, if I didn’t have to worry about a dull knife.”

“Bad plan,” Dekker said. “Mijn moeder, she has a dog. She tries to teach him only to chase Mvr. Van Dyck’s chickens, but he chases all chickens. Geese, too, though they bite him and now he does not chase them.”

Billy looks down at the parrot. “She’s a fair sight smarter than a dog,” he ventured.

“My sister said the same of her children,” DeGroot said, his Dutch accent heavier after speaking in tongues with Dekker. “Smarter and more beautiful than all the children of Amsterdam. They still got ants into her sugar and uprooted her tulips.”

The ship creaked and listed heavily against a wave; bowls, cups, and utensils went sliding, their owners chasing after them with a chorus of cursing. The parrot dug her claws into the wood, flapping wildly, and her wings collided with Billy’s bowl--sending hot porridge over his lap.

“Yeah,” he sighed, his ears burning beneath the laughter. He tucked the length of rope into his belt, where the parrot couldn’t get to it.

“It’s for the better,” DeGroot said. “If you taught her it was acceptable to chew ropes, I would have to get the captain to keelhaul you, and then I would have to train up a new bosun.”

***

Billy tipped over the watch glass and watched the grains of sand start their measured journey once again. It was a slow night: the skies were clear, the ocean calm. Almost becalmed, but there was enough of a current, and in the direction they were headed, that he wasn’t overly concerned. Wind could change in a trice, though, so he kept an eye on the ripples creasing the water.

On the upside, they'd made quicker time than they'd expected on the journey out, so if they were set off course they had water to spare.

“So don't you worry, bird,” he said to the parrot. He had her cradled like a baby in his arms, with her tail feathers arcing like a spray of water over his elbow. “We’ll be good for a week or more of delays, and this is the season for constancy, not fickle winds.”

She replied by grabbing his hand with one of her feet. Billy played with her a little while, letting her use beak and toe to manipulate his fingers however she wished, and kept watch on the sails. They were a bit slack, but there wasn't much to help with that; they were as trim as could be made. The parrot squawked and fluttered until he returned his attention to her. “What is it, my girl?”

“That gull has you whipped,” Joshua said, lowering himself down to sit by them against the mizzen.

“You’re not a gull, are you?” Billy asked the parrot.

“She shits like one. Screams loud enough for one.”

“And you hate her the way you hate rum. Don’t lie, I saw you feeding her biscuit just the other day.”

Joshua crossed his arms, but he didn’t say gainsay him. “She’s a pretty thing, is all.”

“Of course she is,” Billy said, and he knew he sounded an idiot, but he couldn’t stop it. “You’ve heard the crew, she's my lass in blue.”

“Lass in blue,” the parrot croaked out, and every sinew in Billy’s body stiffened in shock.

“Did you just talk?” he asked her, as though she could understand enough to answer.

“Lass in blue,” she said again. The ‘B-L’ wasn't quite right, and she muttered it to herself a couple more times: “Blue, blue, b-loooooo.”

Billy wasn't a stranger to tenderness. There were men aboard ship who had been so hardened to their lives that they shunned softness for a trap or a lie. Billy, though, he remembered his parents. He remembered the sweetness they'd shared between them, and the warmth they'd given to him. He felt that sweetness with his crew, at times; it was why he fought for them. They were his _brothers_ , even the ones he didn't like very much.

But it was still a surprise when he felt a wave of tenderness toward a _parrot_.

“That's it,” he said, so gently he may have been talking to a baby. “Blue.”

“Blue!” she screeched. “ _Blue_!”

“Her first word,” Billy said to Joshua with a blinding grin.

Joshua spared him a patronizing glance. “No, it was ‘lass’.”

“First she likes, then. Close enough.”

Joshua snorted, then winced as the parrot went on another tirade. “If you train her, she could replace you as bosun. She's loud enough to hear over a hurricane.”

“First bosun's mate,” Billy said. “Blue, the bosun’s mate.” He turned to the parrot, and he knew a sappy smile was on his face, but he couldn't muster the will to wipe it off. “How’s that, my girl? ‘Blue’ for a name?”

“Blue,” she answered. “Blue blue blue blue.”

***

Billy reckoned he’d racked up a fair number of regrets for his comparatively short life. Not as many as some--he was cautious enough that he had little to rue--but he was still a pirate, and a man didn’t become a pirate by being good or wise. He regretted going down the alley instead of keeping to the main streets, that fateful day he’d gone out to post flyers; he regretted, in some small part of him, killing his former captain. He regretted not telling Gates how honored he was by his mentorship. He regretted letting Muldoon take care of Blue the time he’d been laid low with a fever, and not just because Muldoon had let her make a mess of the quarterdeck.

But most of all, he thought as the water closed in over his head, he regretted not having the stones to challenge the captain’s tyranny. He’d have thought he’d learned that lesson the first time.

***

“We can’t get her out of his hammock,” Logan said quietly, in a self-conscious way. “Every time I get close she just--”

He reached out a hand, and Blue, tucked inside the folds of canvas, flared her wings and hissed at him.

“Easy, now,” Gates soothed, though whether to the bird or to Logan was equally likely.

It was unnerving. She was just an animal, but he’d never seen an animal grieve like this. When she hadn’t been able to find Billy among the crew (and wasn’t it just convenient, that he’d gone over the side?), she’d retreated to his hammock and had refused to come out for love or money. Or food; it’d been three days and still she hadn’t eaten as far as he could tell. Silver, long may he rot, had been put in charge of the parrot’s provisioning, and he’d said she hadn’t taken a single bite.

“I think she’s waiting for him,” he’d said with a shrug and a wry, crooked smile. “She doesn’t seem to want to hear how long of a wait it’ll be.”

It was the greatest exertion of self-control that Gates had ever mounted that kept him from throwing Silver overboard, as well. 

***

In the end, Logan took up looking after Billy’s parrot. More or less, anyway; she wasn’t interested in being looked after by anyone who wasn’t Billy. She had found a niche above the kitchen, where the oven didn’t quite meet the ceiling, and all anyone could see of her was the occasional shower of blue feathers when the ship rocked and poured them out. Logan put nuts and dried fruit in the nearest fire bucket, and a bowl of water besides, and occasionally she reached out for them. Naked, pink skin was showing on her chest again. Silver made angry noises about feathers getting in the soup.

She became something of a symbol of Billy, and the distrust the crew had of Flint. “Look at that,” they muttered amongst themselves. “Little Blue tearing out her feathers for grief. If Flint had been any kind of captain he wouldn’t have lost us Billy. You ask me, Flint tossed him over.”

Soon, Logan’s hand wasn’t the only one putting scraps in her fire bucket. A kind word to her came with a scathing aside about the captain. Joshua saved her feathers and wove them into a necklace, and hung it beside her nest.

Whenever Logan brought her on deck, if the captain saw her, he scowled. The captain wasn’t a foolish man. He knew the power of a symbol. 

***

In the end, they didn’t have much time to fret about politics and symbols. Blue was perched on the highest line of the mainmast when the warship cut the _Walrus_ to kindling, and it was merely chance and good fortune that she hadn’t yet started plucking her flight feathers.

It was better fortune that she alighted on a broad stretch of white beach, exhausted from the longest flight she’d made in over a year, and that Dufresene happened to see the speck of blue out of the corner of his eye. 

***

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked after that parrot of yours,” Silver said, and Billy’s blood ran cold. He’d avoided mentioning Blue in a half-delirious thought that Silver would use her against him, the way Hume had pried around his armored edges for the soft parts beneath. He kept his tenderest fears hidden--but now Silver had dragged them out where he couldn’t hide them.

“If you’ve touched her--”

Not the wisest thing he could have said. He winced, and comforted himself with the thought that he was running low on reserves. The constriction of Hume’s damnable leather jacket was still fresh in his mind, and there was only so much of himself he had the strength to hold back.

“She’s unharmed by my hand,” Silver said hastily. “Though she has done herself a fair amount of damage. She took your absence hard.”

Billy had all the strength of a kitten, but he pulled against the ropes that held him fast. She’d--that could only mean she’d gone after her feathers again. He felt sick in a way entirely separate from the ache in his muscles and the pit of his belly and the tissues of his throat: this was an ache in a heart, in the tear ducts all but drained dry from dehydration and fear for himself.

“The Devil take you, John Silver,” he gritted out.

“That may be,” Silver said, and he almost sounded sad--but then it vanished. “I’m still not letting you up until I have the assurances I ask for.”

“Fuck you.” Billy’s throat spasmed, and he knew he’d be crying if he had any tears left to give.

“Then I’m afraid we’re going to be here a while longer, and Blue will continue thinking you’re dead.”

Billy let his head fall to the side so Silver couldn’t see his expression.

***

The crew pressed close around Billy, their stink and their familiar voices more than a little comfort. No fewer than four hands were still pressed to his back and shoulders. Billy wished they’d press harder; he felt like he’d never feel the weight of human skin against his own again. Gooseflesh creeped down his spine at the gentleness of it. Just being surrounded by people who were glad to see him because they loved him, more or less, was enough to draw tears to his eyes. He dashed them away. He was hard done by, but he wasn’t _that_ far gone.

“What about--” his voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “What about Blue?”

Logan, the poxy bastard, broke into an enormous grin. Billy pretended, for both their dignity, that he couldn’t see the tears welling in his eyes, too. “I’ve got her here,” he said. “Just be a moment.”

He disappeared into the crowd. Billy stared at the ground, afraid to trust to hope. Nothing felt real; he would have sworn he was floating, or dreaming.

“Logan had to put her in a cage to bring her ashore,” Muldoon said. “She bit him twice.”

“Good,” Billy said, feeling a complete idiot that all this should bring him so close to falling apart. “Should’ve been thrice.”

Over the hubbub of the crowd came a single, piercing, aggrieved squawk, and his heart squeezed in his chest. He knew that voice like he knew the sound of De Groot’s disapproval, like he knew the memory of his mother singing--

The screech she made when she saw him was ungodly.

“Hello, sweet girl,” he said, the words almost lost in his throat.

He didn’t recall Logan opening the cage, but the eight-fold stab of her claws in his chest, straight through the fabric of his shirt, was clear as cannonfire in his memory. Blue clung to him, and Billy touched her with trembling hands. It didn’t seem possible that one body could hold so much emotion.

“Thank you,” he said, not precisely sure to whom he spoke. To Blue, for still being alive; to Logan, for looking after her; to his brothers, for putting him back on axis. Hell, to Silver, for God-knew-what reason, but why not him, too. Billy bit his lip to keep from crying, but tears trickled down his nose anyway, landing on his fingers and soaking into Blue’s feathers.

“I’ve never seen a beast miss a man that much,” Logan said, breaking his reverie. “She mourned you, Billy. We all did.”

Joshua pulled a jumble of blue out of his pocket: a necklace, made of wooden beads and feathers that could only be Blue’s. “I saved her feathers.”

Billy took it, his fingers trembling. “Thank you,” he said. His mother would have been proud; a pirate for a son, but at least he’d remembered basic manners. Then the penny dropped. “Did you start plucking at yourself, sweet girl?” He craned back to peer at her chest. There was indeed a naked patch of skin on her chest. Not as bad as before, but bare nonetheless. “I’m sorry,” he said to her, covering the span of her back with one hand, pressing her gently to his chest. She was delicate and soft beneath his touch. “I’m sorry, Blue, I’m so sorry.” He wished for nothing in that moment but that she could understand him.

She purred softly, like a cat, and he felt it right up against his heart.

Christ, he could scarcely believe it. He was home.

***

A breeze was blowing in from the water, chasing off the humidity and making the beach fires dance like scattered stars across the dark. Night had fallen when Billy wasn’t looking. He looked out over the bay, the water washed orange and bloody red by the setting sun. It was a fragile illusion of safety Nassau represented, even with a Spanish warship on their side. Fear itched through his veins. The urge to get them _away_ while they still could, before the might of England crashed down upon their heads, made him tremble. He pushed it away in small breaths, so as not to disturb Blue.

The breeze was cool and sea-scented. It rustled the beach grass and rocked Billy’s hammock. Hume couldn’t see him, here. Billy ran his fingers over the top of Blue’s head, and she warbled softly at his touch.

The captain (still Flint, and Billy swore that Flint had the Devil’s own luck) would be wanting to know where the crew stood on the upcoming vote. Billy’s position as quartermaster demanded he canvas, but Billy felt like he hadn’t had a moment to himself since Hume’s men had fished him out of the water. He pushed it back a little longer. Blue was splayed out over his chest, and Billy wouldn’t move her for twice the Urca’s haul.

Blue wasn’t much better than he was. She hadn’t let him out of her sight since they were reunited, and even now little shudders ran through her body. Her wings were flopped out to the side, and she was laying on him like a brooding chicken, her eyes half-closed. The wind ruffled her back feathers. Billy smoothed them back down. 

He was wasting time, was what he was doing. It nipped at the back of his mind, but he figured the crew wouldn’t mind. Flint would probably snarl like a bulldog, but Billy’d lost a lot of his fear of Flint. He’d seen worse demons. He closed his eyes and tried to press this moment’s stillness through him. Tried to convince himself he was as safe as Nassau pretended.

He was home, and his bird was safe, and his brothers were as hale and ornery as always.

He ran the tips of his fingers over the top of Blue’s head. “Time to count the votes, my girl.”

***

END

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
